Review – Batter Up – Robyn Neeley

Description:She mixes more than flour and sugar into her cake batter, and he’s about to find out if a little bit of magic is to his taste…

Bakeshop owner Emma Stevens has a secret — a delicious, slightly unorthodox secret. Each Monday, she mixes up a premonition to share with the bachelors of Buttermilk Falls, and sets one lucky man on the path to true love.

When reporter Jason Levine finds himself mixed up in a Las Vegas bachelorette party, he hears the strangest rumour: the marriage is happening thanks to magic cake batter. Seriously sceptical, and sick of frauds, Jason journeys to the backwater town of Buttermilk Falls to expose the baker and release the townspeople from her evil clutches.

But when Jason meets Emma, tempers flare and sparks fly. Will Jason cling to his logic at the expense of a future, or will he let himself fall under Emma’s spell?

Review:
So when I first read the description for Batter Up, my mind flew to the movie with Sarah Michelle Geller (of Buffy fame) from a few years ago, where she is a Chef that infuses magic through her love of cooking in her dishes (yeah, I’m a sap, what can I say). And i was sucked into the story that Ms Neeley wrote from the get-go – in fact, I think I read the entire thing in a day and a half metro ride (so about an hour and a half or so) and nearly missed my metro stop because I was so busy reading (thankfully, the next stop also has the line I had to switch to).

I liked how the characters were developed, Emma made me both laugh and cry and i hurt for her because of the cruelty of some people. Jason was the tenacious reporter – wanting to get his story no matter the cost (at the beginning). In fact, character-wise – he kind of reminded me of Richard Gere in Runaway Bride when he goes to the small town to find out the story, and keeps showing up in weird and random places, establishing himself in the community. I loved the interactions between Jason and the townsfolk – how they basically took him under their collective wings. The secondary romances in the story were a nice bonus.

I’ll say that my one gripe was that everything seemed to end too quickly – there was the story, the conflict and then the resolution was kinda like a wham bam thank you ma’am – and I wanted a bit more. It almost felt like Emma and Jason were slightly cheated out of their HEA because of how quickly everything was tied up. Maybe an additional chapter, or even an epilogue would have worked but yeah – I just wanted a little bit more.

I look forward to reading more stuff by Ms Neely in the future, since I think she has potential to become well liked in the romance genre. Overall, I gave Batter Up 3.5 stars, a solid contemporary romance, with some magical realism.

3 responses to “Review – Batter Up – Robyn Neeley”

Glad I read this review first before deciding on whether to pick up this book. With my one track mind I was certainly thinking something else! However, this is an author that sounds like she would certainly be popular with my wife.